Help settle an argument: with 2 under 5, doing errands is a break

[Anonymous]

You cannot afford NOT to divorce. I would go in food stamps over living like this. Your kids are going to be destroyed by this — and so are you.

[Anonymous]

So it sounds like you two are night owls up until 1am, with kids not properly sleep trained AT ALL waking every hour of the night, so that you are so sleep deprived your husband is concerned about his heart, your husband does most of the cleaning, you have no sex life.

But your primary concern is who gets to go to Target?

Honey, you have bigger problems that need addressed. Primarily your awful sleep hygiene. Way way down in second place is your lack of sex in your marriage.

If you want to fix your marriage, listen to me, not all the people just yes-ing you. Target is a minor tertiary symptom of much bigger problems. Fix the sleep and sex, and you can save your marriage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only you can figure out if your husband has a mental health issue, is a controlling jackass or both. But, if he refuses to change, you don’t have to out up with this. This sounds like emotional abuse, and it sounds like you are scared to stand up to him. This is no way to live.

If this is anxiety and he actually seeks help, there might be some hope here. But it sounds like this isn’t a guy that will seek help — and the problem may really just be who he is.

You need a plan on how to get out of this. Your kids don’t deserve to grow up in a home like this. And it will only get harder to leave, the longer you stay. This guy is going to beat you down emotionally.

This this this. This is not normal “two burned out pandemic parents” stuff OP. Sending you a big hug.

Thank you. The thing is, to most everyone except for maybe my mom and his mom and dad who have visited for long enough to see what an ass he can be, he appears to be such a great, engaged father. And the issue is not that he’s got anxiety or other mental health problems, it’s just that he’s gotten more and more controlling over the years, and his progressive, egalitarian perspective towards women and marriage I feel has basically shifted, imperceptibly at times, much more toward a traditional perspective of mom doing more the parenting and being the default parent. Except he doesn’t give me the benefit as the default parent of running things my way or getting my own routine going or making autonomous decisions, because it’s his routine I’m expected to follow, he wants me “on” whenever he decides he’s not up for parenting and decides to go out for errands or take on a household project, and then he over parents and is very passive aggressive to me the moment he returns and decides to dial back in (he will quiz me about if the kids had a snack and scold me if I didn’t give them one right at 4 pm, or say loudly stuff like “oh did mommy keep you in a wet diaper,” to the baby, or ask me how long the older kid has been watching TV and then lecture me about how we need to get kid 1 off the tv and outside to burn energy).

It’s so hard because he didn’t used to always be like this, truly. But over time he’s developed these insane standards of how everything should be done (eg dishwasher loaded a certain way, only the right amount and kinds of groceries can be bought, laundry has to be sorted and washed a particular way). He’s gotten mad at me for doing things like drying in the dryer a pair of his favorite Bird dog shorts that he likes to line dry, but which the label says can be put on the drier so I put them in the drier. When he discovered my mistake he was like, why are you trying to ruin my clothes? I don’t do this to you. Don’t ever wash my clothes again. It’s just these insane reactions and he will blame me for it saying I was defensive and I was careless and not paying attention to how I wash his clothes and he always is careful with my clothes so it’s my fault he gets mad. And he is always on my case about how I load dishes. He gets mad if I don’t prewash every dish, or load the way he likes (bowls have to be loaded back to front, at an angle, starting from the right side). When I counter by saying there’s many ways to do things and not just one right way, he insists that there is one right way to do something and I’m just being obstinate and oppositional.

His treatment of me over the years has just eroded to a point that these totally unacceptable behaviors that I would have never imagined he’d have 10 or 15 years ago, are commonplace. He’s not a physically violent or abusive, but when he gets angry he frequently loses his cool and yells and as a result I feel like the entire environment of the home is based on if he is in a good mood or not. But he’s so masterful at blaming me and making me feel like I’m the problem that he says it’s me and my moods are the problem, that I yell just as much as he does, that I’m the one who doesn’t treT him
Well and I never have sex with him, etc.. I feel I am being gaslighted regularly, and maybe even experiencing emotional abuse, but I don’t even know how to sort it out. Like, he will yell at me and our older kid, and then say it’s our fault he yells because we don’t listen to him unless yells. Stuff like that...

I feel very trapped and we cannot afford a divorce. As it is our budget is insanely tight.

Yes he is

[Anonymous]

Op, did you post about a month ago about how you were feeling vulnerable and DH needed to treat you more kindly bc you just had a baby?

[Anonymous]

If you have a child who is higher risk, why in the world are you going in person to do most of these errands? Groceries and Target can be delivered or if that is too pricey then do curbside. Stop exposing your kid like this. Order from home on the computer while the kids are running around.

[Anonymous]

I can count on one hand the number of in-store shopping trips I’ve done in the last year, not counting grocery or take-out pickups or UPS drop-offs. Grocery pick-ups are pretty low cost. Amazon has everything and Target and Walmart also deliver most of their merchandise.

Anyway, your spouse has clearly escalated into emotional abuse territory. Talk to your parents about your issues if you feel comfortable confiding in them. Or talk to a therapist solo. Everyone says you’re not supposed to go to couples therapy with an abuser.

[Anonymous]

Oh hell yes, running errands is a break. No question. Even shoveling snow is a break. My DH was humorously annoyed when I asked to take turns shoveling snow.

-- haven't read any of the responses yet

[Anonymous]

OP you said your mom has seen how he acts. Can you confide in her? It will be really scary and hard at first but I really think you need to her out for your sake and for your kids.

[Anonymous]

Errands kind of suck, but the real problem is that you asked your husband to let you do the errands and he said no. That means he IS using it as a break. So just tell him you're going next time. He sounds like a loser.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. He dislikes being with both kids but won’t admit it. He will literally spend 4 hours doing yard work or house projects and then blow up at me when I get pissed off from watching the kids that whole time because he’s the one busting his butt and will say stuff like 0what, you think it’s fun to paint/weed/mow. I’m making your house nice for you!” Except he’s gotten a good sweat going, has been listening to music or podcasts, and has gotten to accomplish something while I’m just watching kids.

I did get ticked last week and went to the grocery store. He complained I was taking too long to check cupboards and meal plan before I went, then was texting me when I was there about why it was taking so long, then complained when I got home because I bought a second gallon of milk, and a second bag of chips of a kind we already had, and didn’t buy a second loaf of bread (I was trying to check but he rushed me out the door) and then was like, if you want to do the shoppping you have to keep track of all this stuff.

He’s gotten more controlling since having kids and then the pandemic and I’m so sick of it.

This is neither normal nor ok. I hope you know that, OP.

[Anonymous]

BS. He is wrong. Going to target my myself is a freaking vacation away from the constant noise of my children.

When I come home from errands, I watch the kids and my husband does yard work because that is his preferred escape.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. He dislikes being with both kids but won’t admit it. He will literally spend 4 hours doing yard work or house projects and then blow up at me when I get pissed off from watching the kids that whole time because he’s the one busting his butt and will say stuff like 0what, you think it’s fun to paint/weed/mow. I’m making your house nice for you!” Except he’s gotten a good sweat going, has been listening to music or podcasts, and has gotten to accomplish something while I’m just watching kids.

I did get ticked last week and went to the grocery store. He complained I was taking too long to check cupboards and meal plan before I went, then was texting me when I was there about why it was taking so long, then complained when I got home because I bought a second gallon of milk, and a second bag of chips of a kind we already had, and didn’t buy a second loaf of bread (I was trying to check but he rushed me out the door) and then was like, if you want to do the shoppping you have to keep track of all this stuff.

He’s gotten more controlling since having kids and then the pandemic and I’m so sick of it.

Kinda sounds like you both hate being with the kids alone.

That’s not it at all. But DH is controlling and extremely concerned about #1’s health condition and #2 getting sick as a newborn/infant so we have basically had little to no child care for most of the pandemic. He’s been extremely adamant and only recently relented to let a nanny in the house. We are both also just utterly and completely gassed and burnt out. And neither kid sleeps well and we are not able to go to bed early because we are constantly burning the candle at both ends to do work/laundry/household tasks that don’t get done during the day while we juggle kids/work so we are chronically sleep deprived (last night for instance we were both up til 12 getting showers in, cleaning the kitchen and doing dishes, and doing/folding laundry and straightening) then the baby was up at 1, screamed for a good 30 min, woke up #2 at 1:45, then #2 was up again at 3 and woke the baby so DH went to sleep with #1 and I nursed the baby at 3, the baby woke again at 5, the baby woke up at 6 and was up and woke DH who flipped out about how he only gets unbroken sleep (uh yeah, I’m the one nursing, so don’t even complain to me as I nurse the baby while you snore in the middle of the night, multiple times, most nights, and somehow you want a medal for every once and a while helping me change a diaper at 2 am?) so I got up with the baby and was up with the older kid who woke at 8 and then he woke up at 8:30 after I let him sleep in and made him food while watching both kids and had the audacity to tell me again how tired he was and how he’s going to drop dead of a heart attack if he doesn’t start sleeping better soon instead of being grateful I took it on the chin so he could get a few extra hours of sleep.

Honestly our marriage was good until kids. It got hard with 1, but as 1 got older we could take turns giving each other breaks so we each had gym time and friend time sometimes and he traveled multiple times per year for work so each of us got some time off. But now with two and the pandemic the demands of the kids are consuming and unrelenting, and I feel like there’s this sexist layer of my husband that’s somehow been unearthed that is resentful I’m not a SAHM and the default parent for everything and that I’m not just ok with parenting more than he does because I’m the woman. He literally will say things like, why didn’t I just marry one of yours sisters because they seem perfectly fine with watching the kids all the time (except one was a SAHM and the other married a wealthy guy with a trust fund who routinely golfs every weekend and leaves my sister with the kids alone but she doesn’t have to work full time anymore because the husband makes most of the money).

MMM, ok. Sounds like he didn't want someone in the house to help with childcare and then he made you just step up and do it, is that right? He's a jerk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it's normal when kids are young (say, both under 5-6) to hate being the solo parent on duty. Every parent I know, including people who are really really into their kids, feels that way. I only have one but it's definitely a chore to be the parent on duty alone, although we try to make it fun (go to the playground, etc.).

OP I would just tell him you're doing an errand without asking if it's ok. "I'm going to the store, need anything?" Take charge. And this is a sign that neither of you is getting real breaks. Talk to your pediatrician about how "high risk" your older kid actually is and what that means -- i.e. would it be reasonable to get outside help once a week from someone vaccinated. If you have family in the area, or even out of state who'd be willing to visit and babysit, now's the time to call.

What on earth are you talking about? We have twins so we've always had two, but since day one there were times that one of us was alone with both of them. And that has just continued over the last eight years. You only have one kid and you find that it's hard to be with that one kid without your spouse? How do you function?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. He dislikes being with both kids but won’t admit it. He will literally spend 4 hours doing yard work or house projects and then blow up at me when I get pissed off from watching the kids that whole time because he’s the one busting his butt and will say stuff like 0what, you think it’s fun to paint/weed/mow. I’m making your house nice for you!” Except he’s gotten a good sweat going, has been listening to music or podcasts, and has gotten to accomplish something while I’m just watching kids.

I did get ticked last week and went to the grocery store. He complained I was taking too long to check cupboards and meal plan before I went, then was texting me when I was there about why it was taking so long, then complained when I got home because I bought a second gallon of milk, and a second bag of chips of a kind we already had, and didn’t buy a second loaf of bread (I was trying to check but he rushed me out the door) and then was like, if you want to do the shoppping you have to keep track of all this stuff.

He’s gotten more controlling since having kids and then the pandemic and I’m so sick of it.

Kinda sounds like you both hate being with the kids alone.

That’s not it at all. But DH is controlling and extremely concerned about #1’s health condition and #2 getting sick as a newborn/infant so we have basically had little to no child care for most of the pandemic. He’s been extremely adamant and only recently relented to let a nanny in the house. We are both also just utterly and completely gassed and burnt out. And neither kid sleeps well and we are not able to go to bed early because we are constantly burning the candle at both ends to do work/laundry/household tasks that don’t get done during the day while we juggle kids/work so we are chronically sleep deprived (last night for instance we were both up til 12 getting showers in, cleaning the kitchen and doing dishes, and doing/folding laundry and straightening) then the baby was up at 1, screamed for a good 30 min, woke up #2 at 1:45, then #2 was up again at 3 and woke the baby so DH went to sleep with #1 and I nursed the baby at 3, the baby woke again at 5, the baby woke up at 6 and was up and woke DH who flipped out about how he only gets unbroken sleep (uh yeah, I’m the one nursing, so don’t even complain to me as I nurse the baby while you snore in the middle of the night, multiple times, most nights, and somehow you want a medal for every once and a while helping me change a diaper at 2 am?) so I got up with the baby and was up with the older kid who woke at 8 and then he woke up at 8:30 after I let him sleep in and made him food while watching both kids and had the audacity to tell me again how tired he was and how he’s going to drop dead of a heart attack if he doesn’t start sleeping better soon instead of being grateful I took it on the chin so he could get a few extra hours of sleep.

Honestly our marriage was good until kids. It got hard with 1, but as 1 got older we could take turns giving each other breaks so we each had gym time and friend time sometimes and he traveled multiple times per year for work so each of us got some time off. But now with two and the pandemic the demands of the kids are consuming and unrelenting, and I feel like there’s this sexist layer of my husband that’s somehow been unearthed that is resentful I’m not a SAHM and the default parent for everything and that I’m not just ok with parenting more than he does because I’m the woman. He literally will say things like, why didn’t I just marry one of yours sisters because they seem perfectly fine with watching the kids all the time (except one was a SAHM and the other married a wealthy guy with a trust fund who routinely golfs every weekend and leaves my sister with the kids alone but she doesn’t have to work full time anymore because the husband makes most of the money).

I second the suggestion got counseling if possible. He’s saying some pretty mean things.

It’s the weekend. Let the clean laundry live in baskets. Use paper plates and get take out. You’re both beyond burned out and the sleep deprivation is destroying your marriage.

Integrate the kids into your life and the life of the household. The baby can lie on a playmat while you fold laundry. Maybe the older kid helps or maybe they play independently nearby. I’ve got 3 and if it’s not done while they awake, it’s not done.

+1. Why are both of you staying up until midnight to do chores? Make meals simpler so you are using fewer dishes. Laundry should be able to get done while kids are awake. Which one of you is the neat freak? It is okay to let some stuff slide so you can get more sleep. Do you have a housecleaner? We only used one bathroom in our house for a while so we didn't have to clean the other bathrooms between our housekeeper coming twice a month.

Op here. This is because my husband refuses to let anything slide. Although he would argue that he doesn’t. I used to be a neat freak before kids but realized that if I let my standards slip I will be much happier because trying to keep everything perfect is impossible. I’m ok with a messy house and letting laundry slide, eating McDonald’s sometimes, easy dinners, going to bed with dirty dishes in the sink, leaving floors not vacuumed. But my husband has become much pickier about cleanliness and is constantly cleaning up, and then tells me how he’s the only one who cleans or maintains order around the house (and of course whenever he gets out the vacuum guess who gets to watch the kids). I think he’s secretly angry that I can’t stay home because we make the same salary and we need my income, and tries to pick and choose the parenting pieces he wants to do (prefers the older kid to do adventures and such, loves that I’m nursing because anytime the baby is fussy or crying he just says the baby is hungry and starts badgering me when the last time I nursed was or insisting I need to nurse to try to calm him). I’ve said I want to go to marriage counseling multiple times over the years and he constantly says I’m the one with the problem, that I need to see someone and all the problems in our marriage are because I’m not nice to him. He’s also super resentful that we are not having intimacy on a regular basis but my hormones are in the tank while nursing like they are when I was nursing the first baby and I honestly find the idea of it repulsive as I am touched out from both kids. Plus he loves to make passing sarcastic comments periodically about how “I never get any” and it just further irritates me. If you want me to feel amorous towards you, kindness and a back rub goes a lot farther than bitterly complaining. I’ve told him as much but he still finds time for these snarky comments.

It's interesting because I was just discussing with my friend how couples with even salaries and hours and even responsibilities around the house (including kids) may be the ideal situation because you have equal distribution of everything (this is how my husband and I are), but then you say this and I guess it comes down to personalities more than anything else because you two are in that spot of even salaries but clearly it's not working out well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, if I were in your position — two kids who don’t sleep well, husband who wants things to be nice around the house and wants sex and wants sleep and doesn’t want anyone else in the house because of germs — here’s what I would say:

“Larlo, I just don’t have the bandwidth to do my job plus nursing in the night plus doing fifty percent of all the work to keep the house to the standard you want. I’m exhausted. I know you are, too. We need to change something, and I’m open to a lot of options about what that should be — maybe we should switch to formula, maybe we should see if we can move to a lower COL area or one of us can find a higher paying job so the other one can stay home, maybe we should relax standards about housekeeping or relax standards about covid, I don’t know. But the status quo isn’t working for me, and it doesn’t seem like it’s working for you either. We’re both burned out, and we need to make some changes. Can we tackle this together, you and me vs. the world?”

This might not work for you like it would for me because your husband sounds like he’s made this a you vs. him thing, but if you can’t try to solve your problems as a team I think your marriage is in serious trouble.

Thank you. I wish I could approach this with him like a team. We’ve been together 15 years and unfortunately very slowly over many years the balance has just shifted to him controlling more and more household decisions. He will adamantly deny this, or say that it’s my fault because I’m indecisive or I cede decision making to him, but frequently when I do make decisions or take action he routinely criticizes me so I feel like I cannot. Like if I put Larlo in shorts for school (when he normally gets her dressed) he will say, why did you put Larla in shorts, it’s too cold for that, and go change her. Or if I make dinner and it’s not ready by 6:45 he starts complaining about how the kids are now going to go to bed late because dinner isn’t ready (but it’s totally ok for him to get dinner on the table after 7, or even 7:30). Or when we took Larla to a new pediatrician and I did all the work to get the appointment, research the doctor, get the medical records transferred (multiple calls to the original pediatrician, new pediatrician, and records company due to some issues) pack a bag with everything for the visit, nurse Larla before we go, etc. But then when we are in the car on the way there and get there it’s not clear where to park when we arrive he starts peppering me with questions - where are we supposed to park? Do they validate parking? How are we supposed to get from the parking garage to the building? And honestly, I hadn’t figured it out. I was just going to wing it. But he takes the opportunity to say, “when I do things like this, I handle it. I take care of all the details. And you don’t. And now you’re just handing me a problem.” (In this case, apparently the 3 minutes it took me to look on the website and Google maps the parking garage were unacceptable to him and me handing him a problem.). I sometimes wish people could watch this dynamic and I could get a gut check on who is the one being unreasonable because he makes me feel like I am responsible when my gut tells me he’s the one who is being overly controlling and particular.

He's gaslighting you. Get a therapist NOW.